“We were just standing around, getting ready to light a cross, when all of a sudden, Trump appears at the podium, and starts talking to us about how we can make America great again,” said Tommy Garrison, who is the Grand Imperial Wizard of the Hatfield Park, Virginia chapter of the Ku Klux Klan. “It was the damndest thing. There we were, about to set fire to a symbol of racially-motivated terrorism, hatred, and violence, and who should appear but the candidate most willing to trade on those things for votes,” Garrison said in amazement.

One klansman in attendance described a feeling of “surprise and pride” that Trump would show up at their rally. “Most politicians disavow any connection to racist violence,” the klansman said, “even if they help craft policies that effectively hurt one race over the other. But Trump clearly is willing to at least openly court us, and that says a lot about him as a person, if you ask me.” The klansman, speaking on condition of anonymity said that he was “definitely leaning Trump” because the business tycoon and reality-TV star “obviously gets what Americans are most afraid of — a silent Mexican invasion from the South.”

“What I love about Trump is that he tells it like it is,” Wizard Garrison told the press after the impromptu Trump rally, “even if how he’s telling it isn’t exactly true.” Garrison said he knew as soon as Trump referred to Mexican immigrants as mostly being “rapists,” “killers,” and “drug dealers” that he was the one Garrison wanted to win the nomination. He told reporters that he was “tired of all the wishy-washy, dog whistle racism of the GOP” and wanted to stop “pussy footin’ around with the uppity blacks who think they’re still entitled to equal treatment under the law.”

Stan Carroll, a member of the Klan for twenty years, said he is still skeptical of Trump. “Oh sure, he’s shown a certain unrepentant disdain for Mexicans,” Carroll said, “but what has he said about the black? The gay? The Jew?” Carroll said that until he hears Trump’s stances on all the “heathen variant-skinned mongrels” he can only tepidly endorse the super-wealthy man who has curried favor of both major parties through campaign donations in the past.